


Winter

by rainstormcolors



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:15:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28199715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainstormcolors/pseuds/rainstormcolors
Summary: Seto is quietly struggling.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Winter

Beyond the holographic monitor and beyond Seto Kaiba hunched in his chair and beyond the glass walls encasing his office, the sky melted in lavender and vanilla on the edge of ocean beyond the glitter of the city. There was snowfall flinting in the glow of the lights below. Seto’s eyes stared ahead, stared at nothing, even though the panel of light from his glass-top desk’s projector floated before his face with words and numbers. Isono sat on the sofa pushed to the front of the office, looking over things on his phone.

“You should go home,” Seto muttered, his head resting in his hand.

Isono didn’t need to be here. He hadn’t needed to be here. But Seto wasn’t given an answer and so Seto continued to stare into the nothing of his holographic monitor.

He couldn’t be sure how many minutes had passed before Isono said, “You should go home to Mokuba-sama.”

And Seto closed his eyes. Seto knew that was what he should do. But Mokuba was growing older and Seto didn’t know what to do about it.

“Maybe I could get you something to drink, Seto-sama?”

 _How are you so much better at talking to Mokuba than me?_ The thought was fleeting in Seto’s heart and he swallowed it away.

“… I’ll have a coffee.” Seto mouthed it more than spoke it.

Isono stood and left the room and Seto gazed vacantly into the floating panel. Isono returned with a Styrofoam cup, faint steam blossoming at the rim. He set it on the desk beside his young employer. “Have you noticed it’s snowing, Seto-sama?”

Seto’s blank eyes left the hologram to peer at reality. The lights of the city were twinkling with snowfall. The skyline had become blurry.

Something was hurting.

“You should go home, Isono.”

“If you’d like me to, I will.”

Seto’s eyes remained on the city though he could hear the pale hint of hesitation within Isono’s voice. Isono lingered but did eventually leave the office. The world was becoming more stained in dark blue and the city was blurred in grey. Seto never touched the coffee Isono had left him.

As Seto stepped into the outside world, the snowfall drifted like comets, blazing white and orange in the streetlights.

There wasn’t anyone to talk to as Seto was chauffeured home. There wasn’t anyone he wanted to talk to. There wasn’t anyone he could talk to. He didn’t know what he wanted to talk about.

The roof of the mansion has been painted in soft grey. The warm light of the windows melted into the air. It was an architecture that had once held so much shadow and cruelty but it seemed so warm now somehow. It was too warm to be a place where Seto belonged. This thought too was fleeting in Seto’s heart and he swallowed it away.

Inside Mokuba was playing some video game in a room tucked away on the mansion’s first floor. Snow fell in the span of windows against night. Cars in radiant colors collided within a fake cityscape across most of the wall of the east side of the room, Mokuba across from it nestled in blankets on a sofa the color of an apple. Seto entered the room with fresh coffee in a mug and sat at the little table in the corner of the room.

“Hey, Nii-sama,” Mokuba greeted as his hands moved over his controller, “How was work?”

“It’s snowing,” Seto said.

“Yes, I see that,” Mokuba said.

“Work was fine,” Seto said.

When they lived at the orphanage, Mokuba would move like a small astronaut through the snow, tiny dreamscapes of white and soft cold in the fenced yard. The memory was dim now.

And was this good enough, to sit in the room with Mokuba and watch his game. Bringing Mokuba into this house was never going to bring something good enough. But everywhere else felt alien and too warm.

“I guess it’s snowing pretty hard now,” Mokuba said.

“The roads will be a mess tomorrow,” Seto said.

“I was just watching the snow for like half an hour when it was still light out.”

Seto sipped his coffee. Mokuba played his game.

“We should try more hand-eye coordination games. Kaiba Corp I mean.”

 _You don’t have to talk about Kaiba Corp_ , Seto thought. He didn’t understand why it was too hard to say.


End file.
